TRADITIONS!

I am SUCH a traditional girl. Sweet Hubby and I built a life together creating our own holiday traditions and we love them. Of course with the growing up my Son has decided to do, some of those traditions have been altered over the recent years, but for the most part the basis of them have stayed the same.

Until 2012! Oh my, talk about breaking traditions, WE DID! But I can honestly say…

1) It was worth it

AND

2) It was temporary!

Yes, we broke our traditions this past holiday season but I can tell you now, they WILL BE BACK this coming year.

How did we break them?

First, I never schedule anything of importance during the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas. That is the one time of year that I devote to crafting, baking, shopping, wrapping and creating a home of…well…Christmas Traditions!

This year they ALL seemed to be broken.

To start, I committed to helping administrate a very cool (and worth it) event called Help-Portrait. I will be a part of next year’s, but will not be in the administration position. The Lord told me to do it this year, but He has not given me any indication that next year is a “go”. It took much more time to make sure everything flowed, than anyone knows I spent on it. Way more! The Lord knows, my hubby knows and I know. But again…it was what He directed me to do and I did it and it was so very, very worth it to see the looks on those kiddos faces and the fun they had. I look forward to being a part next year, but on a much smaller scale.

This meant all other traditions were either put on hold and crammed in later or were not accomplished at all. No crafting, no personalized ornaments, no Christmas cards sent, almost no baking. That last one makes me laugh. I had told Son at Thanksgiving that I wasn’t going to be doing our annual Christmas baking this year. His response? “That is not acceptable!” Ha! Well, I managed to squeeze it in one week on top of many other things.

Second, due to schedule challenges, the only time we could plan Son’s Early Graduation Trip (meaning, his trip was early, not graduation. He graduates in the spring of 2013) was the week before Christmas. That really cut down the time I had for traditional events. No going to Holiday in the Park. No going to look at Christmas lights. No finishing up and adding last-minute goodies to people’s gifts, baking had to be done early and not quite as extreme as usual.

Third, because of the timing of the trip, our Christmas Eve tradition was broken (temporarily), also. We normally spend Christmas Eve with Sweet Hubby’s family eating Chicken Stew with cornbread and opening gifts to then return home to watch a Christmas movie. This year we spent Christmas Eve driving nine hours from New Orleans to home.

Christmas Day traditions were altered, too. We always wake up early Christmas morning and have our tree with opening gifts among the three of us, then dress and head an hour north to my brother’s family’s home where we meet my parents and my SIL’s family. We then spend the good part of the day at their home, opening gifts, playing with my niece and nephews, celebrating Son’s birthday (yes, he is a Christmas baby) before returning home stuffed, full, engorged from all the food, yet satisfied, tired and happy.

Here’s what was different this year: For one, there was no gift under the tree for me from Sweet Hubby. I think that is a first! But that is only because my gift is coming shortly and boy, will it be worth the wait. (I’ll be sure to share when it arrives!) Next, we headed north as usual only to have to cut our visit very short. Reason one: We were going to drive from there to my in-laws to have our Christmas together that afternoon, since we didn’t have it Christmas Eve. Reason two: It started snowing! Yes, we had a white Christmas in the DFW area of Texas! Being my brother lives north a good-ways and weather starts there first, we didn’t want to have to drive on ice. So we ended our visit soon after we had our tree. It was too short. I miss being with them tremendously! However, this was a year of (temporary) broken traditions so it was acceptable. Kinda’.

One last tradition that was broken this year, was watching the New Year’s Day parades when we first wake up and get moving on January 1st. Oh, we were up and moving all right! This year we were in a car, driving five hours to see our “second” son get married. He isn’t our son by nature, but by supernatural – God’s intervention. He is Son’s best friend and he spent many, many, MANY hours with us while they were growing up, so he is like a son to us. Love him!

Traditions are wonderful! Some times I think we get so accustomed to doing them year after year that we lose the appreciation we have for them. Although this year everything worked out perfectly and we made some great memories and experienced some great times as a result of those broken traditions, I look forward to our family’s holiday traditions being restored in 2013!

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